


reflection

by vanitaslaughing



Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: Gen, chapter 13/14 and episode ardyn spoilers i guess, shrug emoji
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-10
Updated: 2019-04-10
Packaged: 2020-01-10 22:37:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,674
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18417293
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vanitaslaughing/pseuds/vanitaslaughing
Summary: “The blame lies with me.”





	reflection

He had considered screaming. Had considered throwing a tantrum. But in this place his feet never reached a ground to stomp down upon, there was nothing he could toss. After what felt like an eternity and a half, the tears stopped at least. He stared into the constantly moving void around him, barely more than light and colour and vast, vast emptiness.

The very same emptiness that he felt right now as he recounted everything that had happened up to now. A certain sense of understanding washed over him as finally so many small things made sense. The way Ravus had stared at him when he arrived in Tenebrae. The way Oracle Sylva had been almost too gentle with him. Gentiana’s knowing smiles, Luna’s sad ones—his father’s insistence on trying to have fun with everything he did.

After a while, even the anger faded. They had all known. He was starting to understand why they had chosen to keep it from him.

Noctis replayed his life over and over in his head. Reached out for Luna’s hand knowing that he would never reach her. Stood at the edge of the hill overlooking Insomnia with his cold and clammy hands on his phone, listening to Cor telling him that his father being dead was true. Drove a weapon into the Daemon that used to be Ravus and heard it gurgle out a quiet thanks as it died a second time. Grabbed Ignis’ hand. Laughed with Prompto. Finally beat Gladio in a sparring match. Watched Luna let go of his father’s hand. Parted with his friends in Altissia. Demanded answers from Titan. Had Iris laugh and lean into him at the market. His entire life, the highs, the lows. The everything in between.

It _hurt._ It hurt knowing that from the very moment he had been born he was to be sacrificed.

Sacrificed to get rid of this _Adagium_ who hated him so relentlessly that he started killing whatever support Noctis had with extreme glee, one by one.

Noctis let out a scream as he jerked back to life with the void around him unchanging. He continued screaming, tossing and turning yet never hitting solid ground. He was weightless here, nothing to support him while he was left to deal with this knowledge on his own.

He started calling for the Draconian to answer him. The god never did.

Eventually after seven eternities and some more, Noctis had lost count of what even felt like an eternity any longer, he all but ripped the Ring of the Lucii off his hand. He so very desperately wanted to throw the damned thing.

But for the first time since Bahamut had left, he felt something brush against him. He watched with mild horror as unfamiliar hands reached for his over his shoulder and closed his fingers around the ring.

“The blame does not lie with the ring, Chosen,” an equally unfamiliar voice all but whispered in his ear, and a cold shudder ran down Noctis’ spine.

Those were human hands, yes, but there was a strange glimmer to them. A glimmer that Noctis had seen countless times in the last… hours? Days? _Years?_ Either way, he had seen it in Zegnautus Keep—the same strangle glow that tearing holes into reality with the ring left. The same shimmering light that lingered every time he claimed a weapon of his ancestors. The same light that wavered about in this void.

“It lies with me.”

The man let go, and Noctis whirled around.

It was like getting punched into the face. The features were familiar yet distant somehow. He was staring into a cloudy mirror that twisted some features—even worse, put them together into a blender with what Bahamut had called Adagium not too long ago.

It was hard to tell where the Lucis Caelum ended and the eerie similarities to Ardyn began as he stared at this man. The stranger held eye contact for a few seconds, then he cast his eyes down.

“The blame lies with me.”

“What,” Noctis croaked after a long moment of silence, “do you mean? Are you some… are you some sort of Messenger?”

A weary sigh; the stranger closed his eyes. “Once I fancied myself one, perhaps, for who would not quite like being the judgement the very heavens deliver? But no. Not a Messenger stands before you.”

“….”

The man opened his eyes again, and Noctis flinched backwards. The last time he had been hit by a look this intense had been… back when Luna had died. Back when he had tried reaching for her.

“Just a fool who played his role to perfection, not once thinking about the consequences. The same role in a play that the gods would have you take now, for the mistakes of the father are the mistakes of the son to the unrelenting deities that govern fate in our stead.”

The intense look was starting to freak Noctis out, but as suddenly as it had flared up, he cast his eyes down again and the man deflated. The gears were turning in Noctis’ head, desperately trying to understand what was going on. He felt like the answer was so obvious that he was missing it.

The man all but lunged forward, a desperate look on his face as he put both his hands on Noctis’ shoulders. “I thought I did what was right! I truly believed that this nightmare would be over ‘ere it began; but all I did was unknowingly feed a fire that the gods would raise to the heavens! The fire that blocks out the sun, the fire that consumes piece after piece of Eos, ‘till naught but my brother on the throne he believes I cheated him out of remains!” The man dug his fingers into Noctis’ shoulders. “The fire they send you to douse now by throwing your body into the flames. It should have been me. It should never have been all those innocent souls marching alongside you. I helped raise that pyre, and Eos be my witness, that was never my intention. I but did as the Bladekeeper asked me to.”

Noctis understood.

The Founder King. That man was Somnus Lucis Caelum, the Founder King, the Mystic. Forefather of their bloodline—and suddenly the similarities that Noctis thought eerie made sense. If the Founder King and Ardyn were brothers….

“I should have known better. I should have questioned these choices for more than a moment, I should have _refused._ But I did not. I let the flames of jealousy consume me, and tried to grant my own conscience peace by saying that no Daemon could be allowed to sit the throne. And now you have to pay the price for my folly.”

It was shocking how _young_ this man looked. The statues and descriptions and history texts had always made him sound like some sort of impressively tall and strong man—yes, he was strong, Noctis duly noted when Somnus let go of his sore shoulders, but he did not _look_ like it.

The man sunk to his knees—or that it looked like that, for Noctis was still painfully aware there was neither ground nor substance in this brightly lit void.

“Had we but questioned fate for _once_ rather than accepted it as absolute will of the gods… had we but….”

Noctis thought he had imagined that. But Somnus clutched his head in agony, and for a moment it looked as if the statue that Noctis had stared at so many times was in front of him.

“Are you—“

“It is only right, I suppose.” Noctis stared in horror as the Founder King’s image flickered violently, tears streaming down his face. The Ring of the Lucii in his hand felt like a piece of hot charcoal and the familiar crystalline light that had surrounded the man burst into the also familiar but much more oppressive gloom of miasma. “I cannot ease the burden we placed on you, Noctis. I cannot lie in the face of destiny, for we all march as the gods will us to in their grace. I raised my blade thinking I acted without strings, but that, too, was ordained. Only when they both lay dead at my feet did I realise what burden destiny had placed on us. Only when I received the ring did I realise what burden destiny would place on each and every single descendant of mine. I… I dare not ask your forgiveness. I dare not ask your understanding. I just… the… my brother. Please, my brother—you have to….”

Before the man finished his sentence, he vanished. Gone as if he had never existed in the first place; Noctis only knew that he had been there because of his still aching shoulders.

He wasn’t sure whether he felt pity for the Founder King, wasn’t sure whether he really understood what the man had wanted to say. He put the Ring of the Lucii back on and curled up.

If Ardyn and the Founder King were but two pieces in a game of chess that destiny played… then Somnus was not the king on the white side. He wasn’t even a tower, a knight.

Just a pawn left on the field, with 112 other pawns following in his trail, all of them hoping that the 114th would wind up being the king.

Not that Noctis had much of a choice in that matter. He was the king that they had needed, and it was his duty to take down what remained on the opposing side. Just a king. A seething, hateful, terrible king—one who could not escape this destiny just as much as Noctis could not.

He understood. He understood, even if the younger brother had asked for neither that nor forgiveness.

* * *

_You have to free him from this curse._

He wouldn’t forgive either of them. But the least he could do was finally bury them before he buried himself.

After all, wasn’t that was destiny wanted?

**Author's Note:**

> i think this counts as a drabble given my Normal Oneshot Lengths
> 
> twitter @cleignewheat


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